


A light to find the way

by everythingremainsconnected



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Gen, Mini case fic, halloween fun for the whole family, if you squint real hard there's all manner of shipping options available, lanterns, so very mysterious!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 09:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16473188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingremainsconnected/pseuds/everythingremainsconnected
Summary: Amanda dreams of flowers and finds - or possibly steals - a lantern that shows some strange things.





	A light to find the way

Mainlining horror films was a Halloween tradition for Amanda. She’d borrowed Todd’s laptop on a permanent, possibly stolen basis to binge her favourites with a rotating audience of Rowdies. After watching a brain-bending mix of Japanese thrillers and clunky eighties slashers and eating her bodyweight in candycorn, Amanda was expecting nightmares.

Amanda was _not_ expecting to dream about skipping through fields of flowers. Again. 

*

Hunched over a computer, surrounded by cafe chatter, a young woman with rich curly hair stared at her screen. Her computer tan rendered her a pasty shade of too-pale brown. There was nothing manic-pixie-aspiring-writer-dream-girl about her. She wore a stained flannel shirt and jeans that were too big. Her boots crushed the toes and kneecaps of unwanted attention. Last week she’d lost a pencil in her hair and hadn’t bothered trying to retrieve it just yet. It would fall out when it was ready. 

Pouring over the documents on her laptop, she wished she could hide out too, reappearing when it was safe and significantly less likely to end in a violent murder. Possibly her own, but with enough planning she might get lucky. She quashed the familiar hum of panic with as much thought as swatting a mosquito. It wasn’t time to give up yet. Not when something might be… close. 

_There_. It wasn’t exactly close but it was a hell of a lot nearer than yesterday. She committed yet more factoids and addresses and possibilities to memory - she never trusted paper and its trails - and snapped the laptop shut. She left a tip on her table beside the empty mug and hurried out. 

*

Adrenaline was responsible for all manner of shit choices. Leaping through closing train doors for fear of being late for work, punching someone two feet taller than you with muscles bigger than your leg… running into a creepy antique shop rather than be possibly stabbed was just the latest on a long list. Todd looked around long enough to spot an opening in the crowded gloom and dragged Dirk after him. 

“Do you think they’ll find us in here?” Dirk whispered with all the subtlety of a freight train. 

“Your jacket has reflective strips on it, they’re gonna find us anywhere if we don’t hide. Come on.” 

They shuffled single file down narrow pathways, the ramshackle construction built of every possible _thing_ a person could imagine. If a dedicated bargain hunter and hoarder extraordinaire had lurked every estate sale in the state for a decade, and then themselves died, their ghost would have happily wandered the ceiling-scraping junk piles. Shadows enveloped them. Todd shivered. 

“Todd, are you open to constructive criticism?” 

“No.” 

Dirk was thoroughly unperturbed. “Now, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but I feel like perhaps wandering away from the light is a bad sign?” 

“There’s a flashlight up ahead. Besides, I’ll take my chances in the dark if it means I don’t get stabbed.” 

“You could just use your phone.” 

“I had to ditch the last burner when they started tracking us, remember? Farah’s gonna be pissed.” 

“Right.” 

“Wait, where’s _your_ phone?” 

Dirk cleared his throat. He couldn’t quite dislodge the pesky truth. “It fell?” 

“Where, down a well? You know what, nevermind. Nevermind. Come _on_.” 

Behind them, too far to be seen but unfortunately near enough to be heard, someone was walking quickly. Todd swallowed a curse and pulled Dirk into a shadowed nook, his hand plastered over Dirk’s mouth. 

Seconds stretched by, Todd’s sanity hanging by an increasingly taut tether. 

There was brief, blessed silence… inevitably broken by Dirk. “Let’s grab the flashlight and find another way out of here. I don’t feel good about the way we came in.” 

“I don’t think we could find our way back even if we wanted to.” Todd didn’t want to mention the tickling behind his ears but it was getting more than uncomfortable. He reached for the light source and pulled out a cheap plastic lantern with a battery-operated candle inside. He paused. “Huh. Looks like a shit Halloween accessory.” 

“Todd, don’t scream or anything, but there’s a bug on you. A small one. But the shadow is a bit… terrifying?” 

On his shoulder was a little crawly thing and Todd gently lifted it from his shirt. “Wow, you’re pretty lost in here.” 

“Aren’t we all? Wait, is that a lady beetle?” 

Todd peered closer with the lantern right by his face. “Nah, one of those wannabe bugs that pretends it’s something it’s not.” 

Dirk looked at the shadows across Todd’s face and shivered. The light really was quite shit, turning his familiar assistant/best friend into some ghostly mystery right in front of him. He opened his mouth and his stomach lurched a second before a terrifying crash echoed through the shop. Dirk yelped. The teetering piles ceased teetering and toppled, the thundering tornado of collapse accompanied by distant shouts and curses. Dirk grabbed the lantern and Todd’s hand in one go and legged it through the disappearing pathways. Shadows and shit flew in equal measure as they ran. The noise made Dirk’s teeth rattle in his head and the floor beneath his feet shook. 

“Now would be - a really - really bad time - to be on rotting floorboards!” Dirk panted. 

“I hate you!” 

“There’s a door!” Dirk ignored Todd’s baffled shouts quite easily under the cacophonous circumstances, and threw his skinny shoulder into the panelled door. 

In good news, it gave easily and flew open. 

In bad news, it gave easily and flew open. 

Dirk yelped again when he crashed into the pavement. The lantern fell from his hands and hit the ground with a concerning tinkling sound, but seemed somehow unharmed when Dirk picked it back up. Dirk was somewhat harmed in the production, and Todd’s pride was almost certainly injured. 

“I’m too old for this,” Todd sighed, dusting himself off. 

“Is it your back again? Farah told you to be careful-” 

“ _What’s new, boogaloo?_ ” 

The shout from the other end of the alley made Dirk’s blood run cold. He turned slowly, definitely stuck in a nightmare, to see the increasingly innumerate Rowdy 3 staring at him. They were dramatically backlit by the sun and for a second Dirk wished he could be maybe one third as intimidating, rather than being nine-tenths intimidated. 

“Amanda!” Todd shouted. “Watch out, there’s these guys with big stabby things-” 

“You mean swords? Yeah, dealt with that.” Amanda rolled her eyes and headed for them, her badass swagger most firmly in place. “The guys wanted a snack, and Rainbow wanted a new hat.” The rainbow-haired Rainbow in question proudly posed in her hat, a broad Stetson with a fake raccoon tail hanging from it. 

Todd sagged. “You saved the day.” 

“You’re makin’ a habit, boy,” Martin growled. He watched Todd and Dirk from under dark brows, his eyes inscrutable. 

“Yes, well, we don’t exactly mean to. Hey, that’s mine!” Dirk sagged further than Todd when he saw Amanda pick up the lantern. 

“Finders keepers,” Amanda said. She grinned, kissed Dirk on the cheek and punched Todd in the arm, and led the Rowdy 3 from the alley without a backward glance. The Rowdies did plenty of backward glancing, with Vogel doing a lot of backward sighing with the occasional “Do we _have_ to go without dessert?” plea thrown in for good measure. 

“I need coffee,” Todd said. 

“I need a pumpkin spice latte.” 

*

In the back of the Oh No Mobile, Amanda stared at the lantern in her hands. It looked like the kind of thing that wouldn’t sell on a dollar store half-off table. The lantern in Amanda’s visions had been a whole lot grander, made of iron and a heavy wax candle rather than the chipped plastic junker before her, but she’d known the minute she touched it that it was one and the same. She sighed. 

“Everythin’ you’d hoped it’d be?” Martin joked from the driver’s seat. 

Amanda snorted. “This is officially the weirdest Halloween present ever. If you can even call it a present.” 

“Halloween don’t do presents!” Cross frowned. 

“Halloween is candy and scary things and toilet paper,” Vogel said authoritatively. “Can we have candy?” 

“We sure can. Rainbow, sniff out that sweet stuff!” Martin hauled on the wheel and the Rowdies clattered around the van, thrown by the sudden force, laughing and wrestling one another, with Rainbow tumbling into Martin and cackling harder as the van careened across the road. 

Rainbow chattered to herself and climbed back to her normal passenger side perch, hanging her head out the window. Her hair flew in the wind like a banner, beautifully contrasting with the beat-up, graffitied, much worn Rowdy van. She picked a direction and pointed, cheering when Martin changed the van direction to follow her unwavering finger. 

The van screeched to a halt outside some grey box of a department store. The Rowdies burst forth like a candy-crazed brood of vampires and ran for the doors, with one exception. Amanda lounged in the van, turning the lantern over in her hands. Looking at it, running her fingers along the peeling paint, Amanda knew the edge of the vision was _there_ , hovering on the edge of awareness, like an itch she couldn’t scratch. 

A short while later, an oddly quiet presence approached. Martin was a paradox; he was delightfully prone to incredible violence and equally inclined to silence so heavy he warped reality around himself. Amanda looked all the way up and found him staring, an expression of careful seriousness on his face. The badass brooding look was thrown a little by the lollipop in his mouth and the unicorn shaped bucket he carried. 

“Got your favourite,” Martin said around the lollipop stick. He presented the unicorn and Amanda peeked over the lid. A mountain of sour gummy worms looked back at her (none of them blinked, thank god) and she grinned. With the lantern still in her hands, Amanda met Martin’s gaze once again. The light hit his eyes just right and the blue was so clear that Amanda forgot how to think properly for a second or two. Martin blinked and the spell was broken. 

Amanda looked away and hoped like hell there wasn’t a flush of red creeping up her neck. “Thanks. My face might turn inside out if I eat all these.” 

“Vogel’s got Reese’s, if you want somethin’ else,” Martin said quietly. He left the bucket next to Amanda and went to lean against the van’s open door. 

“These are perfect.” 

Martin smothered a smile as he crunched down on the last of his lollipop. He swapped the plastic stick for a smoke and passed the box to Amanda. “What next, Drummer?” 

“I don’t know. Not yet, anyway.” 

“It don’t look like much.” 

Amanda carefully set the lantern beside her. “Nothing ever does.” 

*

The young woman with pencil-eating hair stood in front of a burnt out shop front. She watched the fire department trudging in and out of blackened ruins, their clothes streaked with wet soot and smoke. Her hands balled into fists. Despair that curdled on her tongue. She bit down, swallowed hard, sending it back and away before it bubbled out and made an unfixable mess. 

She blended in with a crowd of onlookers and her departure wasn’t noted. Her casual sauntering around to the back alley was also unobserved. If anyone had happened to glance her way, they would have seen a disheveled young woman leaning in an alley, enjoying a quiet cigarette. They would not have seen her mind working overtime, flicking through memories and information, chasing the ghosts of _somethings_ and _maybes_ as she fumbled through the darkness of unknowing. 

What someone may have seen, had they cared to notice an unnoticeable young woman, was the way her eyes fixed on a piece of plastic on the ground. 

*

There was no moon, not even a glow behind the clouds, to lighten the night sky. The black curve of cold universe sat atop them like a bowl, penning in sound and thoughts. Martin blew a long cloud of smoke upwards. The cherry of his cigarette was one of only two points of bright light in the world. 

The other, of course, was Drummer’s… thing. The lantern had lasted longer than he thought it would, but if it was something like _them_ , that probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Martin stared at the shitty little battery-powered candle. It was working fine, had been working fine all afternoon, but the way it had cast shadow’s across Amanda’s face? He couldn’t forget it, couldn’t forget how she’d turned her eyes from him and her face had almost blurred. 

Martin took another long drag from his cigarette. He’d seen too much shit in however many years he’d been alive to discount it, but he knew the folly of dwelling on the past. When his smoke burned down to the filter, he stubbed out the embers on the bottom of his boot and tucked the butt back into the packet. 

Amanda didn’t like it when they littered, so they didn’t. 

Turning back to the van full of sleeping family, Martin heard the edge of a bad dream beneath the snores. It was Gripps, dreaming he was back in the lab, all tied up and alone. Before he could take a step forward and wake up his brother, Martin saw Amanda emerge from the pile of bodies. Her hair was more than mussed, makeup was smeared across her cheeks, and her shirt slipped off one shoulder. She reached slowly for the lantern, rigged to hang above them from the van ceiling, and though her eyes were open Martin could have sworn no one was home. 

“Manda?” 

She didn’t flinch. Her eyes were odd, lighter than usual, and Martin couldn’t blame it on a trick of the lantern’s light. 

The tickle of _something weird this way comes_ had him stuck in his tracks. He watched as Amanda, asleep with her eyes open, unhooked the lantern with deft fingers, and held it above Gripps’ sleeping face. His expression smoothed, his mumbling stopped. The light of that crappy little lantern was bright and bathed Gripps in its warmth. As surely as if he’d seen it slink away into the shadows, Martin knew Gripps’ bad dream was gone. Job done, Amanda returned the lantern to its hanging place, and returned herself to the heap of sleeping Rowdies. 

_Well now_. A cure for nightmares could come in handy. 

*

Plastic shards in an alleyway were breadcrumbs through an evil forest and the antique shop’s fire lit the way. Watching the fallout for something as seemingly innocuous as a second-hand store was illuminating. The young woman with writing-utensil-eating-curls allowed a small, satisfied smile. She would find the truth about this mess if it was the last thing she did. 

She really, really hoped it wouldn’t be the last thing she did. 

For one, her cat had gone missing, and it might be nice to make sure the cat was safe before she exited the world of the living. For another, she didn’t want to die without bringing the truth to light. 

*

Martin wasn’t superstitious… for a southerner. He hadn’t painted the van’s roof blue, but he’d taken care to stick a blue paint swatch up there, underneath the tattered covers. No mirrors hung to distract the devil, and he never worried about crossing paths with a black cat. He himself was too far from the normal side of things to judge, and what kind of asshole judged an innocent animal just going about its day? The plastic spiders and glow in the dark skeletons strewn about the van didn’t bother him either; the Halloween decor had taken fun-filled hours to build and was in a constant state of rearrangement. 

Just because he didn’t hold his breath going past a cemetery didn’t mean Martin was unaware of the creepier shit that abounded, particularly in his strange orbit. The ugly little lamp had a weight to it that Martin couldn’t see the edges of. It worried him. That damn toy had his hackles up higher than any black cat ever could. 

Rainbow and Vogel loved to play hide and seek. For two of the bounciest people he’d ever known (Rainbow was person-shaped, mostly, and Martin was at least seventy per cent sure Vogel was human) Rainbow and Vogel could run and convincingly hide from each other for _hours_. The fun of that afternoon’s game was sucked out of the world the second Rainbow picked up the lantern. 

Every time she looked, no matter how much of a headstart Vogel had, Rainbow found him in seconds. Vogel snatched the lamp and the tide turned most decidedly in his favour, with Rainbow growing increasingly frustrated that she couldn’t evade him. The inevitable tide of the game washed up tantrums and fights. The pair of them stormed off in opposite directions, leaving Martin with a queasiness in his belly. 

Sometimes, when Amanda held the trinket, her attention seemed to be someplace else. Martin never thought he’d be the jealous type at all, but to have those resentful pangs over a junky toy? He sighed, disgusted at himself. There were times when she had the lantern in her hands and her gaze was so _intense_ that he was stuck fast, utterly helpless against whatever new power was growing. He wouldn’t have minded one bit if it was just _her_ , but the undercurrents of _something else_ made Martin overcautious. 

He refused to look right at the damn thing, especially if no one else was around. 

It looked back, somehow. 

He wouldn’t turn his back on it. When they went to sleep for the night, he always made sure Amanda was between him and it. The one nightmare he’d had since they’d picked up the _thing_ was burned away in a blaze of sunlight so hot he swore his skin was burning. Slowly he’d opened his eyes to find Amanda sitting above him, her eyes white with strange black shapes where pupils should be, lantern in hand, light filling the van. She looked at him, maybe even through him a little, and smiled, before hanging the lantern up and going back to sleep. Martin shuffled around to lie behind Amanda, the softness of her shirt soothing his skin. He shivered. 

And then there was the cat… 

Maybe he was superstitious. 

*

“I just wanted a pumpkin spice latte!” Dirk wailed. 

Farah shoved Dirk behind the overturned desk. A small ax thudded into the wall above them and Farah ripped it free, returning it with interest. The thump and accompanying scream that signalled she’d hit her target was grimly satisfying. She retrieved her sidearm from its holster and patted Dirk awkwardly. “We’ll get you that latte, Dirk, don’t worry.” 

“Don’t _worry?_ ” Dirk gulped as an honest to goodness arrow hit their impromptu shield. “And you made me get rid of my crossbow!” 

“Because you couldn’t lift it. It was a liability.” 

“My aim was getting better.” 

“Hitting the side of a barn reliably does _not_ qualify.” Farah snapped off three shots before ducking back behind the desk. The return fire didn’t penetrate the wood but the shockwaves sent a small shard of desk flicking up like an alert guard dog’s tail. 

It was too neat a shard to be a coincidence. Even if it was, Dirk specialized in coincidence, especially since Todd had banned him from ever saying ‘sexy coinkydink’ ever again. 

Farah kept half an eye on Dirk while defending their position. They couldn’t stay stuck forever but she recognized the look on his face; a mix between curiosity, apprehension, and plain old fashioned nosiness that sent a chill down her spine. It was the look of _something weird this way comes_ , another Dirk specialty, and while the look itself wasn’t a guarantee that they were on the right track, it was better than nothing. Farah didn’t like to think her specialty was _nothing_ but after weeks of dead ends it was hard to shake. 

With eager fingers, Dirk scrabbled at the protruding wood until it broke free of the desk, revealing a roll of paper wedged into a narrow cavity. He dug at its edges and pulled it free, looked to Farah with a grin, and opened his mouth only to be rudely distracted by a scream. 

Farah looked over the edge of their protection to see Todd throwing a tray of drinks at the pair of assailants. 

“My _latte!_ ” 

*

Rainbow wouldn’t let Martin drive past a store with a Halloween display. The second she saw fake webs, pumpkins, skeletons and spiders, Rainbow hollered and danced and grabbed at Martin’s vest until he pulled into the lot. He wasn’t one to deny his family their happiness, and the grin on Rainbow’s face as she beheld the tacky splendour warmed Martin from the inside out. 

Martin and Amanda shared a cigarette while the others ‘shopped’ for more decorations for the van. Amanda passed the smoke back and strolled around the lot, stretching her back and legs. A poster caught her eye. 

“Oh no, someone’s lost their cat.” 

“Huh?” Martin wandered over to where Amanda stood, staring at a poster on a billboard. 

“A missing black cat, right before Halloween. ‘Answers to Ham sometimes. She doesn’t like strangers. Call 346-555-43637’. Her name is _Ham_. What a great name for a cat.” 

“If you say so.” 

“Keep an eye out for her,” Amanda said. “Someone’s missing their pet.” 

She wandered back to the van to pick up the lantern yet again. Martin looked at her, once again on edge, and watched as her eyes lightened. Pressure built in his ears and threatened to pop. The Rowdies emerged from the store, sensing something not quite right with their Drummer. 

“I know where to go,” Amanda said softly. Lantern in hand, she strode off. Martin and the others scrambled to follow her steady pace. 

A couple of blocks later and Amanda crouched beside a removalists’ truck, holding the lantern tightly. Martin got down on his knees and peered around the back wheels. By the crummy light of a battery powered candle he spied a green-eyed cat, doing its best to hide deep in the wheel well. 

Martin sighed. “I hope y’all ain’t fixin’ for me to get under there.” 

“I’ll fix it!” Vogel shouted, clambering under the truck. 

In the end, it was Martin who coaxed Ham out from her hiding place. She gave him a fistful of scratches for his trouble and he got off lightly compared to the others. Trudging back to the poster, Amanda called the number and took down an address. 

*

Dirk stared at the sign above the coffee shop. “Are these people even licensed to make pumpkin spice lattes? I thought they were trademarked or something.” 

“I looked them up online,” Todd explained, “apparently they have the best unlicensed seasonal treats in town.” 

“Dirk, go and get your latte,” Farah said. Her voice was doing that quiet thing that meant she was holding herself together with sticky tape and pocket lint. 

With an awkward nod, Dirk led the way. “I wonder if they have pie?” 

“I saw bacon pie on their Instagram,” Todd said. 

“That’s not right.” Farah shuddered. She looked at Dirk, trying to find that _something weird_ look, and saw only a skinny guy in an outlandish jacket desperate for a seasonal drink. 

Todd fell in beside Farah. “This is how he works, remember? We’re not losing time just by getting a coffee. It’ll mean something.” 

“How, Todd? How has any of this meant _anything?_ We’ve just been chasing our tails and going in circles and they’re getting closer to Lydia while we just - just - _don’t_ get closer to _anything!_ ” 

“I know.” What Todd didn’t know was the right thing to say. He never did. He added it to the long list of things he hated about himself. “We can’t give up. Not on Lydia, and not on Dirk. I think they both need us, in their own ways.” Todd looked over in time to see Dirk fail to open the cafe door properly on the first go. 

Farah almost smiled. “I know. I just wish I could _do something_. I hate being… ineffectual.” 

“You’re like, the furthest thing from ineffectual that I could possibly think of.” 

“Thanks, Todd.” 

“So, what are we going to do when we find them? The leftovers of those weird soul guys? Do we… do we kill them? Or?” 

Farah squared her shoulders. “We… turn them in. To the police. Just not the corrupt ones.” 

“You got their phone numbers, do you?” 

“Not exactly. But we can’t just kill them.” 

“Even if they’re after Lydia?” 

“We can’t just kill them,” Farah repeated. She pushed the door open. 

*

Flora’s coffee shop announced its presence with a billboard, richly painted with coloured flowers, and flower boxes running the length of the windows. Amanda stared. She’d been dreaming of flowers for _weeks_. Seeing the sign, literally and metaphorically, the connection clicked into place. Amanda nodded. Ham’s owner had sent them to this address and of course it was all connected. Connected to what, exactly, was a problem for future Amanda. 

Martin followed Amanda into the coffee shop, holding a cat, confident that his general demeanor was enough to promise no second glances would be paid him and the dozing feline in his arms. She appeared to have worn herself out mauling the Rowdy 3. The others waited by the van, not excited to be in close quarters with the cat _and_ the lantern _and_ a bunch of people they couldn’t snack on. 

Glancing around the cafe Amanda spotted the woman they were supposed to meet. There was nothing about her that stood out. She didn’t fade into the background as much as you wanted to look past her, move onto the next thing that wasn’t somehow uncomfortable. 

Amanda recognised her, much the same way she recognised Martin and the boys when they first met. “Are you Dia?” She asked. 

The young woman had a pile of curls that looked like it ate pencils, and one fell out when she flinched. As soon as she saw the cat she grinned. “Ham!” 

Martin cursed as the cat used his chest as a springboard and launched herself at the woman. Ham positively vibrated with purring, rubbing her head against Dia’s with her eyes shut. Amanda sat at the table and waited for Martin to relax beside her. 

“Thank you so much,” Dia said. “I was so worried. It’s just such a shit time, I can’t believe I left the door open.” 

“It’s no problem,” Amanda replied. 

Martin snorted. “It wasn’t your blood gettin’ spilled.” 

“Sorry about that. She doesn’t always like strangers.” 

“I don’t blame her,” Martin said. “She didn’t know any better.” 

Amanda looked closely at Dia and her clearly beloved pet. Pressure was building in her ears like on a long elevator ride, and while she didn’t exactly want it to pop, the limit of comfortable was fast approaching. She took Martin’s hand in hers. It frightened him on a couple of levels, none of which he was prepared to examine for quite some time. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked quickly. 

“I don’t know. Something is… something is happening. Going to happen.” 

“Amanda?” 

Looking up, Amanda grinned. “Farah! What are you-?” 

The cafe doors crashed open and two armed men ran inside in a flurry of shouting and shining guns. 

Her ears popped. 

Martin flew out of the booth as the rest of the Rowdies hurtled in the doors. They fell on the would-be thieves like punk anvils, crushing resistance and bones and weapons. In the same breath Farah pushed Amanda and Dia down beneath the table and pulled out her sidearm. 

“Wait, who are those guys?” Dia demanded. She peered around Farah’s outstretched arm to better witness the roiling melee. 

“Farah! Farah, help!” Dirk shouted. He and Todd ran to her protection around the brawl. Dirk dove into the booth while Todd and Amanda engaged in an awkward ‘no I protect _you_ ’ battle. 

“The punks are mine,” Amanda said with a smile. “Whoever those guys are, they’re bad news.” 

“You don’t say! I’ve been trying to find those other guys for a month!” 

“What?” Farah spared a glance for Dia. Her heart was in her throat. 

Dirk risked a glance and gasped. “Those tattoos!” Farah’s scowl deepened when she saw them, strange angular shapes peeking out from shirt collars. 

Dia pointed at the two men who were now on the floor. “I think they’re part of some cult with fingers in too many pies, including corrupt cops. I’ve been getting closer to them for weeks but they keep vanishing. Those punks are yours?” She looked to Amanda. 

“All mine, but I’m pretty good at sharing.” 

“Don’t let them kill them,” Dia said. “I need answers.” 

Amanda patted Farah’s arm, ignored her brother and went over to her family, gently dissuading them from any fatal stomps, as unlikely as that would have been anyway. Cross and Gripps parked their butts on one bad guy each, holding them steady, while Vogel and Rainbow took turns stomping on any limbs that moved. Martin oversaw the whole process with the air of a man supervising his baking. 

Farah barely relaxed before her brain clicked. “Wait, answers?” 

“I’m so close to being able to prove they killed my cousin. He was a cop. Crooked cops killed him, and when I started looking into it, it went… deeper than I thought.” Dia looked into the distance as she spoke before her gaze gently fell on the lantern Amanda had left behind on the table. She reached for it as she pet her newly found cat. 

“Your cousin?” 

“Estevez?” Dirk asked. His eyes filled. 

“How could you possibly know that?” Dia demanded. 

Todd interjected, “he just knows things. All the time.” 

“Estevez is… he died?” Farah asked quietly. 

“You knew him?” 

Farah nodded. Her eyes burned. “He helped us. He helped us save Lydia.” 

“Lydia Spring? That means you must be Farah Black, Patrick Spring’s former head of security.” Dia saw the shadows across Farah’s face. 

“Yes. I was. That was my life. These guys are closing in on Lydia and I can’t let that happen. We went through so much… and Estevez? I won’t let them get to her.” 

Dia smiled grimly. “Let me get to them, and they’ll be finished.” 

“Are you a cop?” 

“Nope. I’m an investigative reporter. I find the truth.” 

*

Martin had never been so glad to see the back of a kid’s toy. Everyone had less nightmares now, and the last one he’d had, Amanda still woke him up, and her eyes were still weird with too much white and strange black shapes… but now, she saw _him_ when she did it. 

“It showed me the way,” she’d whispered one night. “It showed me the truth. Your truth. Mine, too. It wasn’t so bad.” 

Martin didn’t know how to read the expression on her face. He also didn’t quite know how to explain that it wasn’t a bad thing on its own, but he’d hated sharing her with it… and it gave him the creeps late at night. A lantern shouldn’t be able to look at a man with eyes it doesn’t have. 

*

Dirk finally got a pumpkin spice latte. 

It tasted awful. 

Fortunately he didn’t have to finish it, because a basketball flew by his head and scared him, causing him to spill the monstrosity all over the pavement. 

*

Dia G. Enez published her breakthrough piece, naming and shaming as many corrupt cops, politicians, board members and more that she could find. Farah had passed her some secret intel, including a rolled up list of crucial names, and Dia rejoiced in protecting her sources. 

Having found justice for her cousin, Dia moved onto the next story, hinted at in her cult research, with Ham and mischievous kitten and a tacky Halloween lantern for company. Whenever she looked at the lantern, Dia smiled. 

It reminded her of the day she’d finally brought the truth to light.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm on [Tumblr](https://everythingremainsconnected.tumblr.com/) if you wanna say hi :)


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